Foreign Language Teaching Methods. Some Issues and New Moves

FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODS:
SOME ISSUES AND NEW MOVES
Fernando Cerezal Sierra
Universidad de Alcala
Summary
In this article, I have considered the main FLT methods still in use at schools and presented the theory of language and learning underlying them, their main features, activities and techniques, their foundation and decline, as well as a general assessment of all of them. The following methods have been analysed: the Grammar-Translation Method, the Structuralist Methods, and the Communicative Approach. After paying some attention to innovations in education, the Task-Based and Process models are offered as an alternative. Finally, a relationship is established between curriculum innovation and change and teacher development.
11NTRODUCTION
The main purpose of this article is to provide a critical assessment of the role played by methods in the educational process, though there is also an account of the main different methods of foreign language teaching (FLT) that are in use today. A knowledge of the different methods gives foreign language teachers a good background reference to their own stand on pedagogical matters and classroom practice, and in addition helps them understand the process that FLT has undergone, particularly through this century. To consider FLT as a process means that teaching is not static but changing to respond to new needs and demands as teachers, applied linguists and educationists can prove.
This article deals with the differences between approaches, methods and techniques, as well as the three major issues which are recurrent in FLT. Then, the main characteristics, the psychological bases and the pedagogical features of the principal FLT methods are considered chronologically, presenting the contributions and limitations of the different approaches and methods. Finally, as a conclusion, a connection is established between FLT methods, innovation and classroom research, as a way of teacher development and of learning improvement.

2. 
   THE CONCEPTS OF APPROACH, METHOD AND TECHNIQUE AND THE THREE MAJOR GENERAL PROBLEMS IN MODERN FLT
   

Its seems worthwhile, first of all, to clarify briefly the concepts of approach or principles, method and technique, which are mutually and hierarchically related. They represent, in fact, three levels of analysis and teacher’s decision making for teaching and learning English in the classroom. An approach or strategy is the most abstract of all three concepts and refers to the linguistic, psycho- and sociolinguistic principles underlying methods and techniques. Actually, every teacher has some kind of theoretical principles which function as a frame for their ideas of methods and techniques. A technique is, on the other hand, the narrowest of all three; it is just one single procedure to use in the classroom. Methods are between approaches and techniques, just the mediator between theory (the approach) and classroom practice. Some methods can share a number of techniques and, though some techniques have developed autonomously, the most important ones start from the main methods (Hubbard et al. 1983: 31).
Now it seems oppropriate to mention the three major language learning issues that language pedagogy and ELT have dealt with through this century and that always concern researchers and the teaching profession. Stern (1983: 401-5) labels them as follows:

1. 
   The L1-L2 connection, that is, the disparity in the learner’s mind between the inevitable dominance of the mother tongue and the weaknesses of the second language knowledge.
   
2.